Male dominance and reproductive activity in Papio anubis

The dominance relations of the sexually mature males residing in three troops of Papio anubis at Gombe National Park, Tanzania are examined and three tactics which males employed to increase temporarily their dominance against other males are discussed. The summation of the dominance relationships in each troop revealed a linear hierarchy. In immigrant ('transferred') males, dominance rank was highly correlated with reproductive activity and the alpha male in each troop was likely to have fathered a disproportionately large number of offspring. However, the alpha males did not father all offspring conceived during the study, and factors other than dominance which affected male reproductive activity are also considered.